The world from the perspective of Melbourne's best suburb
I assume without quite knowing that Abbotsford was named after this place, Sir Walter Scott’s last home, Abbotsford House, in Scotland. Other Abbotsfords are to be found in Sydney, Dunedin, Johanasburg, British Columbia, and Wisconsin. That great hotel, the Rob Roy, may take its name from Scott’s novel of the same name. I just discovered the Rob Roy does accommodation from $25 a night with half-priced meals from the kitchen thrown in.
It is true that this post has nothing to do with Abbotsford, except that while I was sitting in Horsham’s Cafe Bagdad a suspected Canadian climber was extolling the virtues of our suburb to his mate, but I went for a drive to Jeparit via Nhill, Dimboola, Mt Arapiles and Horsham. Sadly, our energy flagged before we got to Antwerp or Rainbow. The idea was to get beyond the trappings of suburbia which in my book ends around Avoca and into the “real country” which I was sure was out there, back in the comforting world of plump bakery girls making up white bread salad sandwiches and willingly buttering your coffee scroll, with butter (tick), monuments to the Great War (tick), corellas (tick), proper gum trees (tick), quaint botanical gardens (tick), characterful country pubs with genial cockies propping up the bar (see below) serving up pots of Carlton Draught for $1.65 (nope, $3) and, most importantly in this crazy world of $100 a night motel rooms, charming simple clean upstairs accommodation for $35 a night (see below). The photos of many details of countrytownness are here. Continue reading “I went for a drive to Jeparit”
Here is a helpful tip. It has nothing to do with Abbotsford, so let me tell you this first. A Rough Guide author I met at a party told me that the Abbotsford Inn (now the City Edge Motel) in Langridge St, far too close to Hoddle St and our only non-pub accommodation as far as I know, was one of the worst hotels he had ever stayed in. He had just finished a guide on a South East Asian country. The internet, where he got onto the accommodation, suggests they charge $145 a night on weekends.
Ah the hazards of choosing hotels from afar. You go with the place that sounds brilliant in the 18 month old Lonely Planet only to find them resting heavily on their laurels, or to find that you are at a squat with a check-in desk also named the Original Old Yogi Inn which pays the rickshaw twice the commission of the original Original Old Yogi Inn: the Lonely Planet Effect. So you turn to the internet in search of that overlooked little gem. Continue reading “how to find accommodation”